There are two types of markets: business to consumer (B2C) and business to business (B2B). B2B generally involves products/services which are sold to other businesses. For example, if you are selling bread to sandwich shops, then you are in the B2B segment. Our focus here is B2C, which in our example means you will be selling sandwiches directly to your customers. These are two completely different segments and each one should be targeted with a completely different marketing strategy. Following is an outline of the most important segmentation characteristics for the B2C market: Geographic Location: This is an important question you should ask: “Where are my customers located?” This will impact your marketing message; for example, customers in the U.S. are accustomed to a different marketing message versus customers in Asia.  

Time-Related Factors: Many products are seasonal; for example, swimming shorts sell best in the summer season. This may also apply if you are targeting people during certain hours, for example from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m., when people come home from work and do some online shopping.  

Demographics/Culture/Religion: An example of this is that t-shirts with a photo of Mountain Ararat on them will sell well to Armenians.  

Gender: This is very important and I believe one of the most important segmentation factors. If your product is bought more by women than men, then you should definitely have a much different marketing message/strategy to maximize your profits. Websites such as Alexa.com will provide you with this information, showing you what percentage of people who visit your website are males versus females. For example, if you are selling products to women via your website, you will need to build your pages in such a way that they will appeal more to women since they think differently than men.  

Age: Another very important segmentation factor is age. Again, Alexa.com will tell you a lot about what age group visits your website the most. For example, if you are targeting the 18-24 age group you need a completely different marketing message than someone who is targeting the 55-64 age group. I will give you a good example of user friendliness of the website: for people in the 55-64 age group, your website has to be very simple and easy to navigate because people in this age group did not grow up in the Internet age and have limitations when using this technology.  

Social Status: Social status of your audience is also an important factor. If your product is targeted to upper-middle class people, your marketing message/strategy will differ if you target lower-middle class people. Upper-middle class or wealthy people, for example, care more about quality than price; people in the lower-middle class category tend to care more about the price than quality. Again, these are generalizations, but when you have thousands of visitors to your website segmenting it this way will make a huge difference.

Education: Education also plays a big role in someone’s decision making when buying products or services. From my experience, more educated people usually shop around more and ask more questions. As an example, if your website is targeting educated customers, then you will have to build a much more convincing page with several testimonials and guarantees, telling them how you are better than your competitors.  

Special Interests: This means that you can target cat lovers, musicians or other people with specific hobbies.  

Need for Specific Information: Your audience may also be searching for specific types of information. For example, you may offer a product or service to anyone looking for information on how to start an online business, or those looking for helpful information on how to quit smoking. There are many more segmentation factors, but the ones listed above are the most important ones. A lot of them might not apply to your product or service, but having an understanding about each one will help you customize your marketing message and overall strategy. The more information you have on your customers the better you can target them and maximize your profits.

Product: This is what the consumer wants and you, the marketer, delivers. It can be tangible like a cell phone – basically a physical product. It may also be something intangible, such as a prepaid card for cell phones. How profitable the product is depends on how much it costs to make. For example, it costs Apple $200 to produce an iPhone, so no matter how many iPhones it sells, its profit per phone is still limited by the production cost. However, if we consider Microsoft, which produces mainly software products such as MS Word, it invests initially in the development of the software. After that, it is essentially all profit since it can re-sell the same software over and over again – hence, the profit is much higher.

Price: Price is one of the most important aspects of marketing as it will decide the profit you are making from the product you are selling. Changing the price will influence demand for your product as well; if you increase it too much, fewer people will purchase it and thus turn to your competition. Some companies like to set the price of a new product high to re-coup their costs involved with developing the product, and then later drop the price. Other companies choose what is called “penetration pricing” and set the price lower than the market price so they can gain quick market share. A great deal of research has to be done before you set a price for your product or service.

Promotion: Now that we have our product ready and have priced it, the next step is the promotion of the product. This includes all forms of communication that you are going to use to market your product – advertising, public relation (PR), personal selling, TV and radio commercials, sales promotions, etc. With the Internet, it is now much easier and faster to get the word out about your new product. In a matter of minutes your website/product can be seen by millions of people on Google and other search engines. A clever PR campaign will also spread the news about your product; if it becomes viral, then you hit the jackpot! We will go deeper into different online promotional methods in later articles.

Place: “Place” is simply how your product is going to be distributed. This can be through a physical store, a website or through affiliates who will sell your product and receive a commission in return. Most websites out there have affiliate programs today, which help them to reach more customers without spending money. Affiliates usually will spend the money to market your product/website, and when a sale is made they will receive a commission. For example, let’s say you are selling an anti-virus program through your website and you have an affiliate program offering a 50% commission.

Affiliates who promote your program will receive 50% of the sale amount of the anti-virus program and you will receive the other 50%, which makes this a symbiotic relationship. To summarize, you first come up with the product that consumers want. Then you price it accordingly, depending upon whether you want to price it high to recover initial development costs or price it low to gain market share. You choose the promotion method and the distribution channel, and then you are ready to start making money!

You might have the greatest product in the world, but if you do not market it correctly it will be very hard to sell it. Marketing gives you the ability to communicate a message to your customers regarding your product. Through this message you convey the value of your product to your customers or how this product will change their lives, because marketing is not just about selling; it is about creating certain emotions in people. These emotions will help to create long-lasting bonds with your product.

So, in a sense, marketing not only helps you sell your product – it also helps your product to be remembered through an emotional connection. For example, the coffee chain Starbucks has created a culture which is so loyal to their brand that customers are willing to spend $6 on a cup of coffee when they can get the same cup in another coffee shop for half the price.

Starbucks coffee shops usually have a very relaxing atmosphere with comfortable sofas, hip interior designs and people working on their laptops, which goes beyond just buying coffee. Coffee is coffee, but with the help of marketing, Starbucks was able to charge that premium and at the same time build a loyal customer base. You might have the best coffee in the world, but if you do not market it the right way you won’t succeed. People today are being bombarded with hundreds of brands every day through TV, Internet, radio, magazines and outside banners. If your marketing message does not stand out, you will lose.

The goal of our website is to teach fellow Armenians around the world how to utilize various Internet marketing strategies in order to make money online. The idea is simple: choose or create a product, advertise it online and receive money. Marketing is everything in today’s world and if you master this art you will reach great heights. We would like this website with all its resources and knowledge to be a path to your career in the online marketing world.